Eat your spinach now, kids. Then you can grow up to be big and strong like Popeye, and mutter about Olive Oyl while smoking a pipe that never goes out with a big fat anchor tattooed on your bicep. Come on, your mom will love it.¬† You’ll need the original recording of “Popeye the Sailor Man” for inspiration, so here it is.
Arrrr matey!

The East Texas Serenaders saw the great depression come and go, and survived it intact to continue on and make more records in better times. There’s some excellent bio info here. Give this tune a listen to hear why these serenaders uplifted so many in their day.

Here is an absolutely stellar performance of Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5, in E-flat Major, Op. 73 (“Emperor”), by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by George Szell, featuring Benno Moiseivitch on piano. The audio quality is superb, especially when you consider this was recorded in 1938 and only much later transferred to a digital medium. Here are all three movements, in two high resolution mp3s. Magnificent.

A dark yet transcendent folk song looks back on the days of slavery, that shameful and discredited institution, from the first half of the 20th century, when the memory was still even more fresh than today.